We're going to be in Daniel chapter 9. Many of you know that for over a year we as elders in the church have wrestled with our needs in the area of adult ministries, particularly how to address the needs of marriages and families, care groups, leadership development, and things of that sort. And back in January we were hoping to have had a congregational meeting where we were going to present Mark Rutter, one of our own elders, as a candidate to come on staff as minister of adult education. And on February 2nd Mark informed me that he'd be unable to accept the call that we were presenting. And so at this point we're going to be looking for other candidates. Mark and Patty love our church dearly so obviously has nothing to do with that at all and obviously we love them dearly. And so we're displaying where God is going to lead us in this process. And so also just continue to pray for them. This has been a long year for them as they evaluated God's call in their life and where he's leading them and how he's skipping and equipped them. And so I encourage you to be praying for them and their family. And also to be praying for our church, what we're going to be doing is we're going to be looking for an assistant pastor and we're coming up again just reworking the job description. And we'll be bringing people down for interviews at different times when we bring them down for interviews. They'll be meeting with different ministry teams and leadership teams within the church. And so those of you in leadership in the church will have opportunity to meet them and to give your input. And so I encourage you to be praying for us as we continue that search. We believe God's doing some great things here at UPC but we also see that we need a lot of help. We have some gaps on our ministries and holes that need to be filled and we need some good leadership to help us do that. And so we encourage you to please be in prayer for us as we continue to that search. In fact let's pause right now to go to the Lord in prayer, let's pray. Our Father we do thank you that you are the God who rules over all things and that you're providential care extends to everything that happens in our lives. And that your care is on the rudder family and your care is on the church and we thank you. That we have confidence that you are doing what will bring the most glory to you, what will be for our good. And so Father now we pray that you would continue to be with Mark and Patty as they continue to seek you and to thank you for their faithful service here at UPC and as they continue to be part of our family and we also pray for our church as we look and see who it is that you would have come and help us as we seek to be about transforming lives in a changing world. We look to you to lead us and guide us and now Father be with us as we turn our attention to your word, speak to us, feed us, nurture us, we pray as in Christ's name, amen. Actually one more thing I again invite you to the pancake breakfast that begins this Saturday and once again I want to say that everyone who is part of UPC family we really strongly encourage you to attend and you can learn more about the building process. We keep saying repeatedly that this is not about a building but there is a building involved. It's just not our destination. It's a means to the destination and I want to wet your appetite for what you can learn about this Saturday. I'm not going to tell you everything because then you're not going to come and we want you to come. I want to show you, first of all, this is a site plan of what we're hoping to do with the land that we now exist and my handy dandy pointer here right here is that the building we're in right now, this is Rouse Road obviously and you are in that seat right there. What we're looking to do is add hopefully this summer a modular building, it will not be this large, probably about less than half of that where we'll get some classroom space and then what we're looking to build what our campaign is focused on is building this next building which right here is labeled creatively phase two building and the phase two building. What we're hoping to do with that is it's going to have 16,000 square feet of space downstairs and they'll have 8,000 square feet possibly of unfinished space upstairs depending on finances. We'd love to have it finished but during the 16,000 square feet you give me an idea what is 16,000 square feet, it's about 25% larger than this building and what that will enable to do is have a sanctuary that will seat about 700 people. Right now we have in our three services we'll have about 700 people here in the building today, 600 of whom will be in the sanctuary so what that tells you then is we'll immediately be going to two services in our new building and that building will also have nurseries and rooms for the younger children as well and so what we're looking to build is something similar to this and that it's not an extravagant building but something that's going to be tasteful and attractive yet highly functional because we have lots of things going on in the life of the church. Now I do want to just give you a side of what we're looking for this next slide about what we're looking at long term. We hope to purchase this land back here eventually is still the horse farm and we have the first rider refusal on that so we hope one day to purchase it and then later build a sanctuary here. When we build a sanctuary then this building will either be converted to a gym, the one we're going to be building there, or we'll be a two-story classroom building. I heard that. If not, you might want to clap over here because then maybe this one could be a gym or classroom building so that's the long term plan and parking lots will double as mall fields which is very common down here in Florida and I don't know if I keep going. This courtyard will be here in the buildings a nice grass lawn which we can do concerts and outdoor drama and things like that which is great in the Florida environment. That's a long term and so it goes on to the next one but here's what we're talking about next is this building right here and developing these five acres. Now you're saying Mark I thought you were going to get to your sermon today, Daniel chapter 9, what does this have to do with Daniel 9 and the answer is everything. It says everything to do with Daniel chapter 9 because Daniel chapter 9 is on prayer. And it's where Daniel is going to God and asking God to do something that is beyond his belief they can happen naturally. It's a huge step of faith for Daniel to even be praying the prayer that he is praying. And we'll see that as we begin in. Daniel chapter 9 beginning with the verse 15 reading to verse 19. This is God's Word. We looked at part of this last week and we'll look at the rest of it this morning. Now O Lord our God who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day we have sinned we have done wrong. O Lord and keeping with all your righteous acts turn away from your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the niceties our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us. Now our God here the prayers and petitions of your servant for your sake O Lord look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear O God and hear open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous but because of your great mercy. O Lord listen O Lord forgive O Lord hear and act for your sake O my God do not delay because your city and your people bear your name. As we look at these verses this morning we are going to see two reasons that we are to pray, two reasons that we give to God for seeking his blessing. And the first one is when we talked about a good bit last week but we are going to review again is number one we pray for God's mercy. We pray for God's mercy. Now at the time that Daniel is praying here is what is going on. He is living in Babylon even though he is a Jew. His homeland of Israel of Judah has been wiped out and his home city of Jerusalem has been leveled the temple has been destroyed and the people have been taken captive into Babylon. Now the reason they are captives in Babylon is not because God is abandon them but because they have abandoned God. The God who brought them out of Egypt who part of the Red Sea who fed them man in the wilderness who did all these great miracles they abandoned him and instead chose to follow idols. And so in judgment for this God sent them as captives to Babylon and here is where they are living. Now Daniel has been living there quite a long time. He is praying and he is asking God to restore the nation. He is asking God to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Now he had no objective reasoning for believing that this could happen. He knew they got a promise to do it but from all earthly signs of it from a human perspective there is no hope that Judah was ever going to be restored. And so Daniel is praying for something he can't see. He is praying a prayer of faith. He is seeing where faith will lead him and so begins to pray to ask God to do it. Now notice what reason Daniel does not give God for asking for God's blessing. He does not say God, we deserve for you to help us out. And he can't say that. Why can't he say that? Well the very reason they are in bondage is because God is angry with them. Now if you have a problem with God who do you turn to for help? In fact we see this in our own prayer life. And oftentimes we see the reason we don't pray is because we look and say what right do I have to ask God for anything? What right do I have to go to him and say help me out of this jam? What have I done to deserve this? Furthermore sometimes we begin to realize that not only do I not have a right to ask God to help me but my problem may actually be with God. Maybe the reason I am having trouble in my life is because God is against me. That's exactly what was going on with Daniel in the exiles. They were under the judgment of God. And so how do you pray in that situation? Well you pray like Daniel did, verse 18. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous but because of your great mercy. And so what he does is he begins to pray to ask God for mercy not because he deserves it. And that's a key element of prayer. We don't pray and ask God to do that which we deserve. We never ask God for what we deserve. Never ask God for what you deserve. You do not want what you deserve. For all has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. Do not ask God for justice. What we ask God for is mercy. And so when you go to pray, don't go and pray. Try and bargain with God and say God do this for me because I've done this for you. It won't work. You don't have the capital. It doesn't work. You say well Mark I never pray that way. I pray and I don't think God owes me anything and so I pray because I know I need mercy. I don't go with my own righteousness. I bet you do. You say no Mark I don't. Now I'm going to argue with you. You do pray and you think that you because of your righteousness and I can prove it. Here's the proof. Let's take tomorrow morning you get up real early, five o'clock. You spend an hour in prayer and an hour in Bible study. By the time the family gets up you're cheerful, you're prayed up, you're helping with the kids. They're grouchy because it's Monday morning but you're calm, cool and collected. And as you help with the kids you get them off to school, you kiss your wife goodbye, you go down to work, you go to work, you work hard, you put in a full day's work, over lunch, you elite three people to Christ, and you feed two homeless people, you come back, finish your rest of your work day, come home, everyone's grouchy there but you and you send your wife off and say here honey I'll take care of the kids. You go spend some time with friends and you're just the ideal husband all day long. That's one day. It's very different. Tuesday you over sleep. You get up late, you're late for a meeting and it's a very important meeting and so you get up, you can't find anything to wear, you start yelling at your wife, you yell at your kids, you kick the dog, you're pulling out of the driveway, you run over a kid's bike that they shouldn't have left out to begin with which makes you even matter. And then you get on the road and now you're late and you're on the east west expressway and you fly down and you cut in front of everybody else before you get to the toll plaza for the e-pass lane and then you remember you don't have an e-pass but you run the toll anyway. You get to work, you're grouched with everyone there. You've missed the meeting but you lie about why you missed the meeting because you're too embarrassed to say that you slept late and it goes on and on and on all day. You get the point. Okay, the end of both of those days a crisis comes up and you realize you need help and so you want to go to God in prayer which day is God most likely to listen to your prayer, Monday or Tuesday. We can say we know the truth as much as we know the truth but on Monday I'm going to feel a whole lot more likely that God's going to hear me than I am on Tuesday because I've been a much better boy Monday than I was on Tuesday and so there's a sense in which we're saying I believe God that you hear me because you're mercy but when I've got some good stuff to give with it I think you're going to listen to me better than if I have bad stuff to go with it. What are you saying? You're saying here's my righteousness. I'm coming to you because I somehow have added to it. I've added my righteousness to it and yet that's Daniel says no we go. We pray not because we are righteous, not because we have any right to ask this but because of your great mercy. Now some of you are saying now Mark doesn't the Bible teach that God hears the prayers of the righteous and he doesn't listen to the prayers of the wicked. I mean in fact in James it says the prayers of a righteous man bring about much so don't you have to be righteous for God to hear your prayer? Absolutely. Absolutely. The question is how did you become righteous? How did you become the righteous person who God hears the prayers? You do it by cleaning up your own act, you do it by earning God's favor through spiritual disciplines, you do it through any of these things, no. We don't earn our righteousness. This is the gospel. The gospel is that we in and of ourselves are simple but we receive the righteousness of Christ as a gracious act of God that he gives it to us and so we don't earn our righteousness. It's a gift of God that he gives to us in the basis of what Christ did and so when we go to pray we pray and we say Lord we ask for your blessing. How do we typically close our prayers? In Jesus' name I'm in. Why do we say in Jesus' name? We say in Jesus' name because what we're saying is Lord I come to you not on the basis of my righteousness, not on my prayers and my Bible studies, my evangelism, my good works or any of these things. I come to you on the basis of the finished work of Jesus Christ. I come in his name because Jesus lived the righteous life that I couldn't live and Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for the sin I couldn't pay. And Jesus rose victorious over death and takes me in his resurrection with him. And so I come to you not in my name but I come to you in Jesus' name. What are you saying? You're saying Lord not because I am righteous but because of your great mercy. The more we grasp that the more our prayer life is going to be transformed. The more we go in Jesus' name and not in our name the more we're going to experience the power of God. So we pray on the basis of mercy. Well secondly what we see in Daniel's prayer here is we pray for God's glory. We pray for God's glory. Notice in the text here what reasons Daniel gives God for restoring Jerusalem. Daniel's making a case before God. That's what you do when you pray. You say God, here's what I want you to do and here's why I want you to do it. Why does Daniel say God ought to restore Jerusalem? Look at the text. Verse 17, Daniel reminds God that God made a name for himself by saving the Jews out of Egypt. Verse 16, he refers to Jerusalem as quote, your city, your holy hill. And then he says, your people are an object of scorn. Verse 17, he asks God to restore the sanctuary. Why? He says quote, for your sake. Verse 18, he reminds God the Jerusalem which now is lying in ruins, quote, bears your name. And in verse 19, he sums it up with these words, for your sake, oh my God, do not delay because your city and your people bear your name. What word is constantly repeated? Your, your, your. He says God the reason you ought to do this is not just because we need it. You ought to do this for your glory, for your sake, for your name, for your reputation. And so as you read this, at first it looks like Daniel is simply trying to play off God's ego. He says, oh God, do this for your ego. And he seems to be saying that what God is really concerned about is his own glory, more than anything else. The question is, is God really a glory hand? It's got a glory hand. Is that really what he's concerned with? Well, where the answer is yes. God is a glory hand. The number one concern that God has is his own glory. That is utmost in his own affections is his own glory. In fact, we can take that even further. Everything God does is for his own glory, and his own glory is his chief concern. We see this throughout the Bible, Ephesians chapter 1, why did God save us? Why did God rescue people out of sin and bring them to be his own people? Ephesians 1 says, verse 6, for the praise of his glorious grace, verse 9, for his own good pleasure, verse 14, to the praise of his glory. Even the reason God saves us and shows us mercy is because it brings glory to him. Psalm 1153 says, our God is in heaven. He does whatever pleases him. God is radically self-centered. They say, whoa, I thought self-centeredness is a sin. In fact, let's face it, we don't like self-centered people. People who think everything is all about them, people who think that are concerned with their own glory. In fact, we oftentimes find those type of people rather obnoxious. Yet, here's what Romans 1136 says, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever, amen. In other words, it says everything is for God. It's wrong to be self-centered unless everything does really revolve around you. The problem with the people who are glory-hounds and people who are self-centered, the thing that bothers us about them, is that they think the world revolves around them. They think everything is all about them. Well, if you're God, that's true. He is the center of the universe. He is ultimate. He is above everything else. And so John Piper presented this book, Desiring God, which, let me do a plug here, I've read about 300 books in last ten years, it's still my favorite, Desiring God, John Piper. And he says in Desiring God, he said, it would be wrong for God to put anything else above his glory, because there is nothing else above his glory. It would be idolatrous. And then he would be saying something is greater than him, but nothing is greater than him. And so he can't possibly say something is greater than his own glory. And so God is ultimately concerned with this glory more than anything else because that is what is true, that is what is right. And so when we pray, we say, Lord, I'm praying, bring glory to your name because there is no higher virtue than your glory. Nothing is greater than his highest virtue of all. And so we pray for your glory. That's why Jesus, when he taught us to pray, he said, pray, saying, our Father, who art in heaven, what, first thing, hallowed be your name. In other words, make your name holy, make your name glorious. How thy kingdom come, thy will be done. And here's God's will is being done, and that is what brings glory to him. He is the center of all things. Now that raises a question. How do we know if what we are praying about will bring glory to God? What is it then that brings glory to God? What are the things that we could pray about, say, I know this is for God's glory, or we see this in Daniel's prayer as well. We see the two things. Number one, Daniel links two things to the glory of God. And the first thing is the well-being of God's people, or our good, our good. And Genesis, we read that God made a covenant with Abraham. He said, I will be a God to you and your children after you. And then he goes on and he reiterates the covenant to Isaac, to Jacob, and he fleshes out even more to Moses. And God says, I will be a God to you and you will be my people. And so God then links his glory with the particular people. And so their good becomes a concern of his glory. And so that the fate of the nation of Israel was the glory of God. He did what was good for them. And so what Daniel does, as he prays, he goes to this prayer, he continues to pray, and he says, for your sake, for your people who are called by your name, God has identified in his glory with this people. And so when we pray, we say, Lord, do that which is best for the people who bear your name. Who bears the name of God? We're called Christians. We bear the name of Christ. And we say what God has done is he has humbled himself to attach his glory to our good. There's not this conflict between that which brings glory to God and that which is good for us. God says he's brought those two together. And whatever is for ultimately for our ultimate good is that which brings glory to him. And so we pray and we pray and faith knowing that God desires even more than we do our good. And as 828 says, we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, you know, who have been called according to his purpose. God is passionate about doing what is good for his children. That's what makes him come alive and it says what makes his glory shine the most is in doing good to us. So when we pray, we can pray with great faith and great boldness, God do that which is good for me because I know that is what brings glory to you. That's one reason that way we can glorify God. The second thing that Daniel links to God's glory is God's fame, is God's fame. Daniel links the glory of God to God's fame among the nations. Look again at Daniel 9 verse 15. You see God's very concerned about his own reputation, verse 15. You made yourself a name or a reputation is another way to say that that endures to this day. Verse 16, your people are an object of scorn to all those around us. In other words, here's what Daniel saying, he's praying said, Lord, people are starting to talk. I mean, we're not doing well here and you've identified yourself with us and people are beginning to wonder, you know, if you're really God or not and we're becoming the object of scorn among the nations and what Daniel's seeing is that God has a greater purpose and his purpose is not only to do good to a particular group of people, but God is a missionary God. God is seeking to take the gospel to bring people from every tribe and every tongue to know him. God is about redeeming many people to be children of God. And so God is wanting not just a few to praise him, but he says that one day every need will balance, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And so God is about this seeing his glory and his name being praised on the lips, not just some, but of the whole world. And so Daniel saying, Lord, if you wipe us out, if you don't ever restore your people, then how are the nations going to praise you? How are the prophecies going to be fulfilled? How are the people going to praise and glorify your name? And so we see that God is concerned with His name and that many people praise His name. Now, how does all this relate to our prayer life and particularly to where we are as a church? I mean, it has everything to do with it. It shows us how we are to pray. When we pray, we pray for God's glory and we ask Him to do that which is ultimately for our good and which will cause His name to be great throughout the world. How does that relate to the building campaign? Well, one we say, Lord, we're praying for this building, not to bring up our glory. We're doing this not because we deserve it. We're praying for this building for your glory because we believe it is for our good. We believe it's for our good and we can see how the building would be for our good. One reason we look at that, we are as a church, I'm going to go with some scholars would call sociological strangulation. Sociological strangulation is the feeling that you experience when the service is over. And you begin to walk down the halls and you feel like you just can't breathe. Now, for those of you who attend here regularly, there's something a little bit fun about it because you're bumping into people you know. But if you come in for the first time, this place is awful. I mean, you're going back there saying, do I want to put my kids in that room back there? Look at that hallway. Can I get down the hallway? And you come in and you're thinking, do I really want to have to sit in the very back row or the poles and all this and down the aisle and paper and say, you know, down like that? Is this really effective? And you're looking to say how it begins to choke off and it begins to not work. And you see how it starts to hurt your ministry because right now, how many adult classrooms do we have? 815, you can find a few 94050 and 1115, we have one room that may be available. They can seat 20 people. That doesn't work real well to congregation of 700. And you have your high schoolers and middle schoolers out in the tent. If you have not been out in the tent on a Sunday morning, I encourage you to go. Because it looks nice until you have to live there. And then it's a little bit harder. Wouldn't that be the sentiment down here? That's what Sean teaches of reminding me of. So he goes, you guys, go to the tent. And I say, no thanks. And then when you look at this, we say, how, you know, is it good for us not to be effective at seeing people brought to maturity and Christ? You say, that's not good. It's not good to have a ministry that does that. What we are in danger of doing here is having a place where people come Sunday morning and that's it. And where they're not enjoying community, they're not enjoying fellowship, they're not learning and growing together. And you have a church that is a mile wide and inch deep and does not transform its culture. And we're saying, I do not believe that's the will of God. I mean, in fact, I can say pretty conclusively that having a church that's a mile wide and inch deep, not transforming its culture, is not the will of God. And so with that, we're saying, Lord, we need help. And so we pray for our good. We need this for our sake. And we believe God identifies with us in that need. The second reason is God's fame. You know, we believe that God has called us to take the gospel to East Orlando. You have a problem taking the gospel to East Orlando if you can't bring them in. And there's no place to sit. There's no place to go. And we could solve the problem another way. We could ask them to put a hold on all building permits completely in the city, at least in the east side of town. And maybe the community would stop growing and that might help. But it probably, that wouldn't even help because actually we need more people to move out because the people that are already here need the gospel as well. And so if the community is going to keep growing and if there are people who still need the gospel, we need room to grow. We need room to take the gospel to them. And then you take, add to that, outreach events. How many of you are here for the Christmas coffee house? It was as a great time. We saw many people come to know Christ. Many people recommit their life and it was just a great opportunity. It was basically full this year. What do we do next year? We don't know. We don't know. We could have add more nights, but then the singers and the actors will have to quit their jobs. And their families probably won't go for that. And so we look and we say if we're going to continue to reach out with the gospel to our community, we need more space. Kids night out. I wasn't at the last one, but I was here this summer. And I can tell you, if you were in one of those rooms working with the kids, we need more rooms. It will not work. It works for now and we'll adapt. We're a flexible group of people. But at some point, you're going to hit the limit. And if we are going to reach out to the gospel to bring kids in this community to no price, and see our youth groups continue to grow and to reach out. And our college ministry reaching 30,000 students up the road, then you have to have space. And we say, Lord, this is for your fame. If people are going to come to know you, we need space. And so I have no trouble getting up every day. And throughout the day, saying, Lord, we need that building. We need this building, Lord, because it is for your glory. It is for our good, how you're going to nurture us, and it is for taking the gospel to this community and then throughout the world. And we can pray that with great confidence because we know God is concerned for our good, and God is concerned for his glory, and God is concerned that the gospel go out. And so we're inviting you again and reminding you again to please be in prayer. Apply these same principles to your prayer life as you see God's blessing in different areas of your life, and start to get a kingdom focused on where God is leading you. But particularly, we invite you to be praying for us as a church that God would be glorified here at University of Presbyterian. Let's pray.